In this tutorial, we’ll see how to use Flash Professional to animate our new favorite character, Sad Potato. We’ll begin by creating vector graphics and then learn how to animate characters and scenes by using the Library and Timeline. To wrap up, we’ll export our finished project for Flash Player, HTML5 Canvas and video formats for playback on computers, tablets, and phones. The finished result will look like this

1. Set the Stage for your animation.

In this first video, we get acquainted with the FLA document type and prepare our Stage surface for the lessons to follow by setting the project width, height, background color, and FPS. (The downloaded file sets the stage size & color for you.)

3. Let’s draw Sad Potato.

In this lesson, we’ll use symbols and the project library as we create the character. We’ll see how to draw out the character’s body, legs, and face and work with these elements across Timeline layers.

5. Fine-tune the character’s movement.

This lesson ties it all together by animating elements of our scene across time and controlling our character’s movement from one side of the stage to the other while animating other properties such as size and position along a Motion Path

2. Create the scene for our character.

Create the background and foreground for our animated project using the built-in drawing and image import tools. Import a photograph of the sky, create some grass, and draw a cloud using the Oval Primitive tool. (The downloaded file contains the sky background in the Library - Ctrl L to display.)

4. Animate the character.

This lesson shows how to create a looping animated sequence that makes our character walk. In doing so, we’ll see how to modify our Graphic symbol and use Frames and Motion Tweens to create the animation.

This lesson shows how to create a looping animated sequence that makes our character walk. In doing so, we’ll see how to modify our Graphic symbol and use Frames and Motion Tweens to create the animation.

6. Export the project for the web, iPad, and more.

In this final lesson, we demonstrate how to publish our project for Flash Player, HTML Canvas, and as a self-contained video for distribution across virtually any device.